It's Time for Savannah to Declare Its Ethics Program's Independence

On Independence Day weekend, I like to focus on the independence of
local government ethics programs. The public naturally trusts any
ethics program that has not been selected by the officials under its
jurisdiction. An EC that is not dependent on the
appointment and budgetary powers of a mayor or local legislative
body can function, and be seen to function, fairly and without bias.

Savannah is a city of 140,000 people, certainly large enough to have
a decent, independent government ethics program. However, it lacks one. Its
ethics board does no training, provides no advice, oversees no
disclosures, has jurisdiction only over elected officials, and has
no teeth and no webpage. The ethics board's members are selected by
the mayor and board of aldermen.

According to an
article in yesterday's Savannah Morning News, two of the three
ethics board members have tendered their resignations due to the
fact that they made illegal contributions to or endorsements of city
candidates. They said they were unaware of restrictions on their
political activities.

The Savannah ethics code is short and has very few limitations on
ethics board members. They cannot "hold an elected public office nor
any other City office or employment," and they are "prohibited from
engaging in city election, political activities and from making
campaign contributions to candidates in city elections during their
terms as board members."

Since the ethics board members do not appear to be
ashamed not to have known about these limitations, it is clear that even they were given no training on the
ethics code. If they had had training, they could not now say they
didn't know.

This is a good time for Savannah to step back and take a fresh look
at its government ethics program. It needs to decide most of all
whether the city has a program that can hold the public's trust. For
example, does the city really want to have a big conflict of
interest at the center of its conflict of interest program? I am
referring to the fact that the ethics board members are selected by
and make recommendations to the very elected officials over whom
they have jurisdiction. The bottom line is, Can anyone trust the
ethics board if it says that an elected official did not violate the
ethics code? I don't think so.

Yes, the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) model ethics code, part of its Cities of Ethics Program, allows this
central conflict to exist. But that doesn't make it right.

Did the GMA explain to
Savannah why an independently selected ethics board is good enough
for Atlanta (and Jacksonville, New Orleans, Miami, Milwaukee, etc.),
but not for Savannah? If it did not explain this, it did not handle
the issue responsibly, and Savannah should look elsewhere for best
practices (for example, Atlanta or City
Ethics' best practices).

The city also needs to recognize that the most important parts of a
government ethics program are the parts it doesn't have:
training, advice, and disclosure. An ethics program that does not
even train its ethics board members is not a program worth having.
An ethics program that does not train those under its jurisdiction
can only catch misconduct, not prevent it. And prevention is an
ethics program's goal.

What should the mayor and board of aldermen do? They should contact
five local community organizations, ask them each to name a
representative, and have the representatives meet to select
replacements for the two ethics board members (or fill all three
positions). They should send their selections (two or more) to the
mayor and board and aldermen, and these offiicals should appoint members from
the list pursuant to the ethics ordinance.

Then the mayor and board of aldermen should hold public hearings not
on the ethics code, but on the development of a comprehensive ethics
program that will include training, advice, and three kinds of
disclosure, and will include a full-time or at least part-time
ethics officer selected by the ethics board, to do the training,
provide the advice, and counsel the ethics board. City Ethics' free digital resource book Local Government
Ethics Programs sets out how to do this, and the City
Ethics Model Code includes the language.

Not only can Savannah get the ethics program it deserves, but
Savannah can set a new standard for other cities in Georgia, forcing
the GMA to reconsider its minimal
Cities of Ethics program.

When Savannah City Council created the city’s ethics commission four years ago, the purpose wasn’t to foster a more ethical atmosphere in city government. Instead, it was to create a window dressing. An illusion.

The mayor and council wanted to be called a “Certified City of Ethics.” That’s a mostly feel-good label that the Georgia Municipal Association dishes out to its members, so they can claim to be upright, open and above board in their dealings with citizens.

... [I]f the mayor and council really cared about ethics, they would get serious. They would create an independent ethics board whose members they didn’t appoint. Jacksonville, Fla., has one. It has an ethics director and a process for investigating official complaints, which must be sworn to and in writing (there’s a phone line for anonymous complaints). ...